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Gowalla Goes to Disneyland

Gowalla will offer virtual versions of the pins that visitors to Disney theme parks have been collecting for years.

As it attempts to expand beyond a niche of early adopters, Gowalla, the location-based social network, is headed to perhaps the most mainstream place on earth: Disneyland.

The company will announce on Thursday a partnership with Walt Disney Company through which Gowalla will offer tailored versions of its products to visitors at Disney’s theme parks.

Disney already encourages visitors to buy pins from the attractions they visit, building collections or trading with friends. That is the brick-and-mortar version of the idea behind location-based services, where people check into places using their phones, earning virtual pins, stamps or badges in the process.

Gowalla has designed over 100 virtual pins that visitors can collect by checking into places like Space Mountain. The company has also created various tours that visitors can use to customize their time at the park. They can, for instance, be guided only to rides for children shorter than 44 inches tall. Or they can “walk a day in Walt’s shoes,” by visiting only the park’s oldest rides. Visitors will also be able to look at a map of Disney parks and see what other people are doing, much in the same way that Gowalla’s users can look at pages of cities today.

By pitching location-based services as a way to collect virtual souvenirs and create a record of a user’s travels, the deal can help Gowalla expand beyond young, technically savvy types, said Andy Ellwood, the company’s director of business development.

“That idea is not something that is isolated to urban hipsters in New York City and San Francisco, it’s open to anyone who wants to tell their story,” he said.

Gowalla’s user base would skyrocket even if it converted a miniscule proportion of Disney’s users into new users. Gowalla currently has about 600,000 users. Nearly 120 million people visited Disney theme parks in 2009.

Mr. Ellwood said that the theme parks as a perfect place to introduce location-based services to people who find such services either perplexing or off-putting. There is a clear purpose to the exercise in such an environment, he said, and less of a threat in telling people where you are.

“Disney a fantastic example of a place where people might begin to use Gowalla a little bit, and then understand the idea,” he said.